1. Mastered for iTunes is a set of utilities and guidelines

Basically it’s a set of guidelines for people to follow, to ensure you get the best quality versions of you music files available in the iTunes Music Store. Apple also include free utilities that allow you to preview how your files will sound once they’re encoded.

The guidelines are great – they encourage you to submit the highest quality files, and suggest how avoid falling into common traps that affect the quality – for example avoiding clipping and not over-cooking the music’s level because of the so-called “Loudness Wars“.

Whether you’ll hear a real difference from submitting a 24/96 version of your music is debatable – my quick tests suggest the answer is “not much” – but Apple also hint that in future they will use the high-quality masters to offer better downloadable versions in future, which can only be a good thing.

So far, so good.

2. Mastered for iTunes is a section of the iTunes Store

Here’s where things get a bit messier. Apple have also created a specific section of the iTunes store for files that have been mastered according to the “Mastered for iTunes” concept.

BUT this section includes examples that clearly don’t follow the guidlelines!

So for example, titles like Metallica’s “Beyond Magnetic” and the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “I’m With You” are both clear “loudness war” casulties – mastered at a ridiculously high levels and lifeless and full of distortion as a result.

3. Mastered for iTunes is also an opportunity

In that case, I’d have no reservations in declaring the process a huge success. The disadvantages of the lossy encode would be completely outweighed by the improvement in sound.

This would be a little to do with high sample rates and bit depths at the source, but far more to do with great mastering. It could sound better than the current CD – because it would have more dynamics, more depth, more space, more punch – just better.

Maybe there are already “Mastered for iTunes” titles out there that already achieve this goal – if so, I’d love to hear them.

4. STOP PRESS – Update: Mastered for iTunes will use a new lossless format

Since I wrote this post, Tom Davenport has unearthed some very interesting new information over on Gizmodo:

In a nutshell, Tom believes Apple are going to use the new HD-AAC format to allow us fully lossless access to files that have been “Mastered for iTunes” at some point in the future.

You should read the full article for all the details, but this is huge – and it makes it all the more critical that musicians, labels and mastering engineers take advantage of this future format upgrade.

What’s the point of lossless 24/96 masters if they don’t sound great ?

Comments

Every audiophile on the planet should be absolutely thrilled at the Mastered for iTunes proposition – this is the first step in mass distribution of high res audio!! Here’s why:

1. It’s the end in the 44.1/16 standard. Now a producer can upload audio in whatever native sample rate/bit depth it was recorded at, then let iTunes do optimized-for-their-format conversion!

2. iTunes is now building a repository of high res digital files. Some day in the not-to-distant future (with increases in device storage size), I can see them offering the native lossless versions of an album. And when they do, they’ll already have a giant repository of high res files built up.

1. As a submission format, yes, But the encoded files are still 44.1 KHz, and may also only be 16-bit. Even if they’re 24-bit, what is that worth for a lossy format ? Enquiring minds would like to know.

2. I hope you’re right. The question is, will we get to choose, or will their software say “you’ve only got 20 GB on your iPod, I’m giving you a lossy file”…?

It’s all about choices and variety. With an online service like iTunes, there is no need for wars on loudness or formats, just give the people what they want.
My personal favorite would be 48k/16bit in 256k AAC, and many customers would need a “standard” to guide them through the unknown. Ideally iTunes would have the uncompressed masters, allow download in the format of choice and even the dynamic range of choice. It’s easy to build the final compression into the download handler, although I think that step should actually happen in the playback device, not the source material.

What if one prefers physical formats and/or is totally fed up with rotten frequent computer breakdowns (BOOOM All gone…Bang! – H-Disc dead! – Hyped E-Music gone!)…So with a totally crashed computer, physical formats have advantages! – Can’t the $music industry get that? Now I see that they come up with a Internet streaming model…No thanks, this seemed wired for the wealthy/rich with dear broadband plans and quite often ‘tin-can ears’ who cant hear the awful tinny over-squashed sound. I had such a crash recently, the main reason I wasn’t active on Dynamic Range Day!

I see the ‘mastered for iTunes’ just pure hype, hype, hype! *yawn* *sigh* 🙁

@ Robert, I’m from the ‘go betweens’ or ‘generation y’ those who preceeded ‘generation me’, those who saw digitisation happen, it wasn’t all great either, I grew up on vinyl (I know it’s limits) but it felt more real, mid-period CD’s were good, a vast improvement, but everything sounds bad now, everything, speakers are smaller, and reproduce nothing, and things don’t exist if they’re not ‘online’ in some way.

I too, still want physical formats, as it seems there’s going to be a point where where an internet of a certain size is all we can afford to power, and there simply aren’t enough materials to make everything wanted.
Also, I don’t want to be dependent on a phoneline/computer to hear music, CD’s are rather handy for that.

@ Ian, I have Mylo Xyloto (and whether you like Coldplay’s music or not) it’s one of the best sounding CD’s I’ve heard that isn’t independent, Jazz or generally not ‘mainstream’ in some way, where people seem to care about the people listening to it.